The Department of Defense is proposing to tighten its contracting
rules to restrict access by foreign nationals working in U.S. labs to
information and technology that is export-controlled, a move that
could wreak havoc in university research centers and elsewhere.

"Any access to export-controlled information or technology by a
foreign national or a foreign person anywhere in the world, including
the United States, is considered an export to the home country of the
foreign national or foreign person," the proposed rule states.
Accordingly, any such access must be restricted, or licensed, DoD
contends.

University administrators and others say the export control
requirements, strictly interpreted, would be so onerous as to cripple
many DoD-funded university research programs, where foreign nationals
make up a large fraction of working scientists.

"To comply," explained reporter Yudhijit Bhattacharjee in Science
Magazine today, "universities and companies working on defense
projects would not only need licenses to enable foreign nationals to
participate in the research but would also need to protect
export-controlled information through an 'access control plan' that
includes 'unique badging requirements for foreign nationals' and
'segregated work areas'."

Rather than adopt such practices, some university researchers say,
they would decline DoD contracts.

The proposed rule follows on a March 2004 DoD Inspector General report
which found that "DoD does not have adequate processes to identify
unclassified export-controlled technology and to prevent unauthorized
disclosure to foreign nationals."

See "Export-Controlled Technology at Contractor, University, and
Federally Funded Research and Development Center Facilities," DoD
Inspector General report, March 25, 2004:

In an extraordinary intervention last May, the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) approached the National Academy of Sciences
and asked the Academy not to publish a pending scientific paper on
the consequences of a terrorist attack on the U.S. milk supply.

Secrecy News belatedly obtained a copy of the May 27 HHS letter
spelling out its concern that the paper by Lawrence Wein and Yifan
Liu constituted "a road map for terrorists." See:

It should be said that HHS did nothing wrong. The letter, from HHS
Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson, advanced a public safety
argument against publication but did not present any threat of
censorship or other form of coercion.

It is some kind of landmark in the post-9/11 record of freedom of
publication. Even so, scientific critics -- principally Milton
Leitenberg and George Smith -- argued that the paper is a poor guide
to public policy since it is predicated on unfounded assumptions
regarding the availability of botulinum toxin, and uninformed by an
awareness of the actual security measures that are in place to
protect the milk supply (Secrecy News, 06/14/05).